We Are Officially Volunteers

Sorry it's been so long since we last posted. Jennie and I drafted a
post a few days ago and were transfering it to the phone, but the
phone cut me off at 1294 characters. Then we were going to break it
up into multiple posts of 1000 characters or so, but I lost the
notebook. That's okay though, because so much has happened in the
last four days.

We've finished what Peace Corps here calls Phase I Training, which is
basically all the classroom sessions. The next three months are Phase
II, where we begin to integrate into the community and complete
assignments that apply the skills we learned. Phase III is in January
where we come back together to share our experiences and successful
practices.

The exciting news is on September 20th we were sworn in as Peace Corps
volunteers at a ceremony at the ambassador's house. We also have a
new address:

Ben & Jennie Bleckley, PCVs
PO Box 870
Nebo
1059
South Africa

More about our new home, jobs, and host family in our next post.

New Address, more information on training

Hello everyone!

I know you were hoping that we would change the address that you could send letters to one more time so here you are:

Jennie and Ben Bleckley
Peace Corps
PO Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
South Africa

This address should be good until around September 20th and then we will send word with a new address.

I received an email today telling us more about training (July-September) so I thought I would share that with you.

A little bit of information about South Africa and the Peace Corps program there:

"South Africa is a country going through an enormous transition. It is a First World-Third World country. The government and private sector have created a robust, First World economy. However a large segment of the population still lives in a Third World economy. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, you will be addressing the needs of those still living in a Third World society, threatened by AIDS and enrolled in an educational system that still does not adequately meet the needs of learners.

This year Peace Corps will celebrate its 10th anniversary in the country. On the day of your swearing-in to become a Volunteer, 140 currently serving Volunteers and numerous dignitaries will be present to recognize a decade of Peace Corps Volunteer service in the country."

My dad said that when we received our new placement (we were not able to go to the first place we were nominated for due to restrictions after a rough medical clearance process) we would be blown away. He sure was right!

We will arrive in Johannesburg on Saturday July 21st in the morning. We will then be driven to Mankwe Education Center in Rustenburg. We will stay there for one week "being oriented to Peace Corps and South Africa." After that week we will move into the home of a South African family who will help us learn the ropes from July- September.

This family will live in the Zeerust area (approx. 120 kilometers from the Botswana border). They will be responsible for helping us with language, teaching us how to cook, wash clothes, etc. We will be eating all of our meals with our host family. The staple food is maize (corn meal), prepared as a thick porridge called "pap" and eaten with vegetables or a sauce.

During our training six languages will be taught: Sepedi, SeTswana, IsiZulu, IsiSwati, Xitsonga and Afrikaans. Every volunteer will take an oral language proficiency exam near the end of training.

Needless to say I am getting very excited and nervous! Any warm thoughts are appreciated.

Love,
Jennie

Address change

Hello everyone!
I just wanted to let everyone know that our address during training has changed to :

Ben and Jennie Bleckley, PCT
Peace Corps
126 Verdoon Street
Sunnyside
Pretoria, South Africa

We recently received an email with language lessons that we need to work on, so we are in the beginning stages of learning Setswana (and by beginning, I really mean beginning!). We will have language lessons for several hours every day during training. We do not know for sure if we will be speaking Setswana during our service, but we will be place with a family who speakes Setswana during our training in July, August and September.
We are getting very excited for our upcoming adventure ( a little over three weeks left until we leave for staging).

Thank you everyone for your support!
Love,
Jennie